I have worked on projects that help to answer various research questions in biochemistry, neuroscience, and medical sciences, for over 8 years. Listed below, are select projects and select publications.
Dr. K. Kosik
In Dr. Kenneth Kosik’s neurodegenerative disease lab, I worked as a lab manager and staff researcher.
Projects:
Characterizing intrinsic activity of human patient-derived disease model organoids, via calcium imaging and dense electrode array electrophysiology.
Exploring the application of optical imaging paired with vibrational spectroscopy to study lipid metabolism at a single-cell resolution in human-derived model systems.
Exploring the use of functionalized piezoelectric nanocrystals for neural subtype specific non-invasive neuromodulation, upon ultrasound stimulation.
Exploring the use of functionalized piezoelectric nanocrystals as protein target and cell-type reporters to dense electrode arrays, upon transient ultrasound stimulation.
Select Publications:
Yeran Bai, Carolina M. Camargo, Stella M.K. Glasauer, Raymond Gifford, Xinran Tian, Andrew P. Longhini, Kenneth S. Kosik, Single-cell mapping of lipid metabolites using infrared probe in human-derived model systems. Nat Communications 15, 350 (2024)
Dr. B. Kaneshiro Laboratory
In Dr. Blair Kaneshiro’s electrophysiology lab, collaborating with the Dr. Anthony Norcia vision and neurodevelopment lab, I worked on an open-source MATLAB machine learning classification toolkit, designed specifically for neural data. This toolkit was designed with classic EEG and fMRI stimulus event-related brain response studies in mind, to help researchers to get more from their neural data.
Select Releases:
MatClassRSA: A machine learning classifier toolkit designed generally for neural data, with multi-electrode ERP studies specifically in mind.
Dr. S. Siegel Laboratory
In Dr. Steven Siegel’s translational neuropsychiatric lab, I worked on elucidating the mechanisms of disease. I have studied the ways in which early childhood adversity, depression, anxiety, pain, drug use, and mental illness may affect brain biochemistry, which may further result in physiological changes, that further manifest as aberrant behavior. The lab works with translational rodent models, as well as cell culture models. Listed below are projects that I worked on while in this lab.
Projects:
Identifying translatable EEG auditory ERP biomarkers for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (with Dr. Michael Green).
Developing translatable animal models of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.
Exploring the effects of early childhood adversity and chronic social stressors on behavior, cognition, epigenetic events, and biochemical biomarkers for disease.
Exploring the effects of NMDA antagonists, such as Ketamine, and MK801, on auditory ERP response, resting EEG oscillatory changes, behavior, cognition, brain biochemistry, and biochemical changes in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (IPSC)-derived astrocyte and neuron cell cultures.
Exploring the effects of SRC deficiency induced NMDA receptor hypo-function, on cognition, behavior, and EEG ERP response.
Implementing deep brain stimulation, to rescue symptoms of the following: Epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia (with Dr. Darrin Lee). Monitoring septohippocampal circuitry, including hippocampal theta oscillations, prefrontal cortex gamma oscillations, coherence, and theta-gamma coupling via multichannel EEG.
Select Publications:
Featherstone RE, Li H, Sengar A, Borgmann-Winter KE, Melnychenko O, Crown LM, Gifford RL, Amirfathi F, Banerjee A, Parekh K, Heller M, Zhang W, Marc AD, Salter MW, Siegel SJ, Hahn CG. Blocking Src-PSD-95 interaction rescues glutamatergic signaling dysregulation in schizophrenia. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Mar
R. E. Featherstone*; Raymond L Gifford*; F. Amirfathi; J. P. Alaniz; J. Yi; A. Tran; D. Adomian; A. Schwenk; L. M. Crown; O. Melnychenko; C. Duval; K. Parekh; D. J Lee; S. J. Siegel. (2021) Early Life Social Instability Stress Causes Lasting Cognitive Decrement and Elevated Hippocampal Stress-Related Gene Expression. Experimental Neurology. 2022
Zepeda NC, Crown LM, Medvidovic S, Choi W, Sheth M, Bergosh M, Gifford R, Folz C, Lam P, Lu G, Featherstone R, Liu CY, Siegel SJ, Lee DJ. Frequency-specific medial septal nucleus deep brain stimulation improves spatial memory in MK-801-treated male rats. Neurobiol Dis. 2022
Ward, K. R., Featherstone, R. E., Naschek, M. J., Melnychenko, O., Banerjee, A., Yi, J., Gifford, R.L., Borgmann-Winter, K.E., Salter, M.W., Hahn, C.G. & Siegel, S. J. (2019). Src deficient mice demonstrate behavioral and electrophysiological alterations relevant to psychiatric and developmental disease. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 93, 84-92.
Zhang, R. V., Featherstone, R. E., Melynchenko, O., Gifford, R., Weger, R., Liang, Y., & Siegel, S. J. (2019). High-beta/low-gamma frequency activity reflects top-down predictive coding during a spatial working memory test. Experimental brain research, 237(7), 1881-1888.
Raymond Gifford 